Rational Resistance

Saturday, April 14, 2012

A new window on the character of John Edwards

John Edwards's trial started this week, and the news just provides more revelations about what a scummy character he is.

When John Edwards started running for president I was in his camp. Among other things, he was the only candidate who really made eradicating poverty the central theme of his campaign. Luckily, given what we have learned since his campaign ended, he didn't become our candidate.

I don't care who politicians sleep with. For that matter, I don't much care who regular people sleep with. When John Edwards was running for president, though, asking people to vote for him, work for him, and give him money, while at the same time he knew he was carrying on an extramarital affair that was bound to demolish his campaign when it came out (hint: it always comes out), that's when I do care. He wasn't just putting his marriage and his family at risk, he was putting the faith and efforts of millions of Democrats across the country, and the fate of the 2008 election, at risk.

So that makes him pretty low in my book, but now it turns out that he's even worse.

He doesn't have to do this. He could plead guilty. He could decide not to involve his daughter. Instead, he's having his daughter testify to defend him against charges that he gave campaign money to the woman he was having an affair with while his wife, his daughter's mother, was dying of cancer.